


the time and the place

by fishydwarrows



Category: The Magicians - Lev Grossman
Genre: Complete, F/M, Family Feels, Fillory (The Magicians), Friends to Lovers, M/M, Mosaic Timeline (The Magicians: A Life in the Day), Mutual Pining, Parent-Child Relationship, Post-The Magician's Land, Queer Families, Quentin's Land, for personal reasons i will be inserting the mosaic plotline into the books, idiots to lovers, timebubbles and puzzles that were definitely not part of vacation plans
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-28
Updated: 2020-12-19
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:00:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 13,077
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27760393
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fishydwarrows/pseuds/fishydwarrows
Summary: Eliot and Quentin go on a poorly planned vacation and learn some truths along the way.Post The Magician's Land this is basically the Mosaic plotline from the show wormed into the book continuity.
Relationships: Arielle & Quentin Coldwater, Arielle & Quentin Coldwater& Eliot Waugh, Eliot Waugh & Janet Pluchinsky, Quentin Coldwater & Alice Quinn, Quentin Coldwater & Eliot Waugh, Quentin Coldwater/Eliot Waugh
Comments: 73
Kudos: 65





	1. never the time and the place

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! This is my first book fic I've posted for the magicians trilogy (though trust me it's not my last) This fic will contain some elements from the TV show but that's mostly contained to the scenario they're in and three-ish characters who appear. Other than that I'm kinda treating this as TML 3.5 lol I hope you all enjoy! we definitely need more book fic in the world :) Thank you Airenn for betaing this!! Please leave a comment if you enjoyed!

“You should get out more,” said Alice. She picked at her nails nonchalantly. 

“Out?” Quentin said. “I’ve never been more ‘out’ in my life.” 

He gestured to their measly camp: two sleeping bags from Target, two heavy backpacks, a pull-out chair with two cup holders – which Alice was currently hogging – their small portable grill, and their electric blue cooler which Quentin had spelled to hold five times its carrying capacity. 

Alice gave what Quentin could only describe as a “look.” 

“You know that’s not what I meant. You should meet some people. Actually, let me rephrase that.” Alice stood from her chair and brushed some crumbs off her skirt, a remnant of Quentin’s poor attempt at a knock-off Chick-Fil-A chicken sandwich. Alice patted him solidly on the shoulder. 

“Frankly, Quentin, I’m bored.” 

“Bored?” 

“Yes. I tried to stave it off as best I could but- “ Alice shrugged. “There’s only so much fantasyland a girl can take.” 

After they’d passed the expected one hundred acres of Quentin’s land, the Cozy Horse had literally put it’s foot down. So, Quentin and Alice had pushed forward on foot with only an ounce of camping experience between the two of them. They’d traversed for six months: camped in the odd copse, sheltered under irregular rock formations, and built lean-tos in the middle of nowhere. Facing Alice’s bright blue eyes, Quentin supposed it was only a matter of time. Fully human in body but perhaps not in mind, Alice was a glutton for new information. She even kept a journal with a staggering amount of cramped notes and quick sketches. Quentin glanced at it now; it was full. 

“If you want to go, Alice, I won’t stop you.” Quentin said. 

It would hurt to be on his own, but Quentin was a grown up now, almost thirty-one, he could deal with it. 

“I do want to go,” Alice said bluntly. She bit down on her bottom lip, eyes searching. “I’d feel like shit if I left you here by yourself.” 

Well, that was sweet. 

Quentin thought for a moment. 

“You know, you said it yourself, I can always go crawling back to Eliot,” he laughed at the thought. Eliot was busy being the High King of New Fillory. As much as Quentin might want him around, he wouldn’t be the one to steal him away from his responsibilities. Besides, what would Eliot think if Quentin came back only six months later after telling him he wasn’t coming back to Fillory just yet? He wanted to return triumphant, proof of his success in his hands. Alice’s eyes flashed. She made a complicated motion and pulled her wrist upwards. Their meager campground whisked away into Quentin’s spelled blue cooler. Alice picked it up and dumped it unceremoniously into Quentin’s arms. 

“That’s exactly what you’re going to do.”

* * *

Castle Whitespire 2.0 was a lot like the original. Really identical if you thought about it. Eliot thought about it quite a bit, more than he’d really like to. What first had been a really exciting plan - rebuild Whitespire, maybe change the color, get rid of the spinning towers, convince the dwarves to build a couple bidets - had now backfired into an excruciating amount of responsibility. Josh had drawn up the floorplan, a skill he’d claimed to cultivate from his time world hopping, and it had all seemed deceptively simple. But, six months later Eliot was still sleeping in a tent. Albeit one of incredibly good quality that he’d buffed with a Doctor Who charm that made everything bigger on the inside, but nothing could stop Fillorian rain apparently, especially after an endless summer. 

On top of all of Janet’s bitching about flying buttresses – something she’d failed to mention she’d even been interested in all eleven years of Eliot knowing her – there was also the baby. George Hoberman. A name Eliot associated more with accountants and tax brokers than actual five-month-old babies. No one had ever told him, but Eliot had a sneaking suspicion it was Poppy who had chosen the name, which felt worse given she was the sensible one in that relationship. Little Georgie was a healthy baby boy who had extraordinarily strong lungs and an extremely poor sleep schedule. 

Between the human alarm clock and the endless clink of metal against rock, Eliot was losing his goddamn mind. 

“I need a vacation.” Eliot declared. He swiveled his cup of Fillorian claret with a loose wrist. “Do you think if I plead and bat my eyes enough, Quentin and Alice might take me on their whatever-they-call-it? Survey?” 

Janet groaned, knocking her own cup back steadily. “You could visit Plum in the Clock Barrens.” 

Eliot shook his head. The last thing he needed was to be in proximity of hundreds of ticking clocks. 

“No, no,” he reached for a biscuit across the table. Janet swatted his hand and grabbed it for herself. “Plum’s fine discovering her family destiny and whatnot. I’m talking about an idyllic getaway to an unknown land. Q told me his land crosses over into Fillory anyway; he could see where the peaks of the Northern Barrier met the Nameless Mountains.” 

“He’s north?” Janet asked.

Eliot nodded. “Near Loria.” 

Janet raised an eyebrow. “Just a gryphon away.” 

Eliot hummed. He’d thought about it a lot, going to Quentin, and saying…what? Come back please, I couldn’t stand when you were gone before, and now it’s somehow worse? No, he couldn’t do that, not when Quentin had said he was moving forward with his life. Eliot refused to be the one holding him back. 

“I could vacation here. Have a little stay-cation or something.” 

“Oh my God, do you even hear yourself?” Janet pointed her fork at him like it was an axe. In her hands it very well could be. 

“You need to get off your ass and get moving, El, or you’ll miss your moment.” Janet crossed over to him and pulled Eliot to his feet. She met his eyes, patting his behind with a solid hand. “This firm ass won’t stick around forever and then where will you be? Saggy and babysitting Poppy and Josh’s spawn for a free dinner and movie.” 

Eliot sighed. “It’s not that simple.” 

“No, but it is. Need I remind you that five years ago we tapped that flat Coldwater ass and still managed to keep him around? Believe in yourself, just a little. You reserve all this confidence for Fillory and that’s wonderful, baby. I just need some of that confidence for yourself.” 

Eliot bit his inner cheek. Confidence was fine. Eliot had plenty of it, buckets full. The thing was, Janet was doing her best, but she failed to see the most important part: Quentin wasn’t just some guy. There was almost eleven years of history there and Quentin… he’d decided to move forward with Alice. Sure, he was pained and delighted every time he got a message from Quentin. Some scribbled commentary about Quentin’s survey and an additional note telling him how Alice had found a tunnel to a giant pink rabbit’s den or Alice scaled a tree and caught a red-tailed hawk by its beak or Alice had plucked the moon from the sky or whatever. They were a lost cause - or Eliot was, at least.

* * *

Alice traced a portal into a nearby beech tree, her hand steady with concentration. Quentin watched her work in quiet awe. 

Relearning how to move and function as a human had been a challenge for Alice. After the adrenaline of Fillory almost dying and the creation of Quentin’s land, Alice’s body had finally decided to play catch up. Stiff fingers, weak bones and static charged hair seemed to go along with Alice’s post-niffin life. To combat the symptoms of her new body, they’d started stretching together, something Quentin had never done in his twenties and now sorely wished he had. Ever the overachiever, Alice had worked tirelessly to strengthen her hands and redevelop the finger strength needed for complicated casting. Now, Quentin watched her make the final motion of the portal spell; with a gentle push, the wood inside the outline fell away. “I’ll leave it open so you can find your way back.” Alice grabbed his hand and pulled Quentin through. The portal Alice had made had affixed itself to an empty frame on the wall. Subsequently, Quentin landed face first onto hard marble. 

Ow. 

Quentin rolled over and pinched his fingers to the bridge of his bruised nose. 

“Leave me here to die,” he moaned. Alice leaned over him, faking the appearance of thought. 

“Nah.” She helped him up with a grunt. “Come on now, let’s go find Eliot.” 

The interior of the second Whitespire was made up of unfinished, whitewashed stones. There was a terrible detachedness to it all, made worse by lack of roof and smooth floor. If Quentin didn’t think he was terrible at interior design, he’d have a thing or two to say to the Royal Interior Designers. Alice dragged him along, glancing up at the walls every now and then only to comment on the structure of the building and its support. If there was a limit to the amount of times a person could say “load bearing wall” in one day, Alice had certainly surpassed it. 

After an hour of searching wherein Quentin tripped over at least two stray tools and almost hit his head on an archway in progress, they finally got directions from a particularly stuffy looking wombat with glasses. Apparently, all the royals had been placed in little tents near the worksite, along with everyone else in the court who had taken up work on the castle. It made Quentin think about a documentary he’d watched once on medieval castle construction: the time it took to build a castle would often be so great that small villages and eventually cities would pop up to compensate for the workers living right at the construction site. 

Alice dragged him from his thoughts and through the makeshift dirt streets, their little cooler bumping behind him until they reached a particularly fancy looking tent. It had a golden crest with a crown at its center, as good a sign as any. Alice walked them forwards, but Quentin’s legs locked. She looked back at him flatly. 

“You’re not going to miss me that much, are you?” Alice said. 

Yes, Quentin thought. Of course, he would. He loved Alice, she was his friend and they’d been relearning each other for some time. Not in a sexual nature but a platonic one. It’d been years since they truly knew each other, and Quentin had been so young and self-absorbed back then he’d hardly had the ability to know himself let alone another person. It was nice. 

“Yes,” Quentin said. “Of course, I will.” 

“Oh,” Alice said. She squeezed his hand. “It’s not forever. I just need something new, we both do.” Alice patted down her pockets with her free hand and tsked. “I’d enchant like, a journal or something so we can keep in touch, but I don’t think I have one. And I definitely don’t have a cellphone.” 

Quentin smiled. “It’s fine, like you said it’s not forever. Have you decided what you’re going to do?” She’d probably been thinking about it for a while, stewing over the information and turning it in her mind until she had come to exact certainty. 

“Yeah, actually,” Alice tucked some of her dark hair away from her face. “During my time as a niffin, I met others. For the longest time, I’d just assumed I was mistaken because it hurt too much to think about but… I met him.” 

“Him?” 

“Charlie.” 

Charlie, Alice’s brother who had met the same unfortunate fate as his sister years before her. 

“You’re going to bring him back?” Quentin asked. 

“First step is finding him,” she said. “Then, yes, I’m bringing him back.” 

“You’ll need my help. I know the spell by heart.” 

“And when the time comes, I’ll call you,” Alice stepped close and patted him on the cheek. “But this first part I have to do on my own.” Quentin frowned but didn’t say anything. If he’d learned anything at all in his twenties it was that Alice deserved to be trusted. She knew what she was doing. 

“Am I interrupting something?” 

Alice and Quentin turned in unison. It was Eliot.

* * *

Eliot was a little pissed at seeing Quentin and Alice making goo-goo eyes at each other in front of his tent. It was his space, and he was in a semi-despondent and irritable mood, which meant he was not ready to interact with straight people. 

“No, not interrupting at all.” Quentin said, pulling away from Alice with a quickness that almost had him face planting into the dirt. 

“Hey Eliot.” 

“Alice.” Eliot replied. “I thought you guys were backpacking by the border of Loria?” 

Alice shrugged. “I got bored.” 

Eliot looked at Quentin: he had the familiar neurotic deer-in-the-headlights look. 

“Well, if you’ve come to reclaim a crown or something, I’m afraid we’ve reached the cap. Unless you want to unseat George as Poppy and Josh’s loudest and only child.” 

“No, no, none of that.” Quentin smiled, some of that tension going away. “Alice thinks I need a change of pace, or at least, change of partner.” 

“How convenient!” Janet weaseled her way out from behind Eliot. He hadn’t heard her, the sneaky bastard. “I was just telling his High Kingliness that he needed to get out more.” She threw him some side-eye. “Seize the day, newsies style or whatever.” Eliot rolled his eyes. 

Alice laughed. “We’ve got perfect timing then.” She snapped and far away there was a zipping noise. Quentin turned. 

“I thought you were going to leave that open?” 

“Change of pace, Quentin. I’m not setting you down where we started.” 

Janet looked up at Eliot. “Find a village or something. Relax, take your boots off, stay a while, stay two weeks! It’ll be fine.” 

“Fine,” Eliot said. 

He could see no downsides. Except for a vacation with Quentin and Quentin alone for a fortnight. The man himself looked about as nervous as Eliot felt. 

“You’re good with this?” Quentin said. He tugged at a lock of his white hair. 

“Yes,” Eliot said. “Are you?” He squeezed Quentin’s shoulder. They were eye to eye. 

“Of course.” Quentin said. His eyes flicked down and up again to Eliot’s gaze. “You’ll need more than one tunic, though.” 

“Oh right.” Eliot laughed. 

A vacation. It would be fine. They’d stopped Fillory from dying, stopped magic from dying, and stopped the Beast. He was High King, he could handle a little vacation with the man he loved.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also the chapter titles come from the poem Never The Time And The Place by Robert Browning!  
> my twitter: @wow__then  
> I don't know when exactly this will be finished because I'm very erratic but I hope you stay along for the ride!


	2. and the loved one all together

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Quentin and Eliot go on their vacation and it takes a little longer than planned.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> squeak squeak goes the clown shoes because this chapter is 8k ASFDGJSDF thank you Airenn for suffering my impatience. also i lowkey made myself cry with this. please consider leaving a comment if you enjoyed!

“Come on, let’s see if the tavern’s full.” Eliot said. 

After deciding that he was in fact going to relieve stress by spending time with the person he stressed over the most, Eliot had hefted his kingly duties over to Janet, who practically pounced upon her extra executive power with glee. With a little help from Josh, Alice had created another portal and promptly shoved Quentin and Eliot through to the other side. Decked out with camping gear and a magically expanded backpack to carry Eliot’s featherdown pillows, they set off. 

It was fascinating being in a world with the person who created it. Eliot could see echoes of Quentin wherever they went. The sky was a little too blue, closer to the color of a Brakebills tie than Earth’s atmosphere. They often found circles of seven flowers with golden keys sprouting from their stigmata. Eliot had no idea what they unlocked. Some of the creatures were normal, there were a hell of a lot of squirrels. The by-product of the Coldwaters moving to the ‘burbs, Quentin claimed. And the trees; Quentin had shown him excitedly, the place where he’d planted Eliot’s pocket watch. Quentin’s own homemade clock tree. It had grown giant, much like the one they’d found years ago, thrashing in intangible wind. 

Now, two weeks in, they had come across something more unexpected than they’d encountered before – even more so than the talking stone that had asked them for milk - a village. The buildings looked older than anything he’d seen in Fillory; the towns there were more, late Renaissance, early Enlightenment. 

This shit was practically medieval. 

Inside the village tavern, the ceilings were low and the room heavy with smoke. Eliot and Quentin had to bow their heads to get through the door. There was a badger smoking a long green pipe in the back corner and a solid looking woman serving drinks at the counter. They slipped into a booth. Quentin struggled with his backpack as he attempted to take it off. Eliot watched him for a while before taking pity on him and spelling the straps loose. 

“So,” Quentin said, pulling out some round glasses from a case and sliding them onto his nose, “Do we think this place existed before the land appeared or after?”

“I don’t know. After? This whole world is magic and only semi-based in logic so, who knows really.” On the table there were diner menus made of parchment, Eliot picked his up and perused it mildly. 

“It’s just crazy to think about, like, what if this village is cursed or something?” Quentin tucked a stray hair behind his ear. It fell down again. 

“We could ask,” Eliot said. He looked away from Quentin’s hair. 

“Hi!” he called to the badger in the corner, “Is this town cursed?” 

The badger smacked its snout and puffed out smoke. “No,” it coughed, “But there’s a puzzle up the road, the Mosaic, if you young folks are looking for something to do.” 

“Thank you.” Eliot turned back to Quentin. “See, not cursed and there’s a puzzle. We can go check it out after lunch.”

* * *

The Mosaic turned out to be a square of dirt and a small unoccupied cottage. Eliot wandered over to the home, giving Quentin ample time to inspect the puzzle by himself. He crouched over it, his knees cracking unpleasantly loud in the process. The Mosaic, as he could count it, was a strapping twenty-eight-by-twenty-eight square with piles and piles of four-by-four-inch tiles. A quick round of mental math and a sorting spell told him that there were seven hundred and eighty-four tiles total and fifteen separate colors. Altogether an infinite amount of combinations and design possibilities. 

“Wanna try it?” Quentin said when Eliot emerged from the cottage. 

“Try it?” 

“Yeah. It’s just a puzzle. Did that badger say anything else about it? What the theme was or the goal of it all?” Eliot dropped his backpack with a thud and joined Quentin on the ground. 

“The Mosaic’s supposed to depict the ‘beauty of all life,’ whatever that is.” Quentin looked around and grabbed an orange tile. 

“A sunset, maybe?” 

Eliot snorted. “Have you ever taken an art history class?” 

Quentin rolled his eyes. “Sunsets are beautiful.” 

There were plenty of beautiful things in the world. Castle Whitespire in the morning, the steam that rose up from the Burnt River, Eliot’s eyes. 

That last one took Quentin by surprise. 

He supposed Eliot was beautiful, even handsome. His twisted jaw was something of an anomaly but there was an animation to Eliot, a certain liveliness in his features that lit up the room. 

Yes, that was a beautiful thing. 

“I’m not disagreeing with you.” Eliot said placidly, shaking Quentin from his thoughts. He grabbed a tile of his own, green, and turned it around in his hands. 

That was another thing: Eliot’s hands. They were unreasonably big. Quentin watched them turn and turn the tile between them. A magician’s hands were sturdy and well-calloused and often littered with the telltale residue of recent magic. His own hands were long and thin, perfect for playing the piano or getting stuck between doorways. Quentin rubbed at the tile in his hands. 

“I just think if we’re gonna make a design, we could get a bit more creative,” Eliot continued. “I know we don’t have a Bob Ross video for reference or anything, but if this is gonna be a one and done kind of deal, I’m not going to half ass it.” 

“Whatever you say, art expert.” Quentin shrugged. Eliot chuckled and shifted his weight onto his knees. 

“Let’s try it once and go.” Eliot said.

Quentin nodded. It was getting late. 

His hand hovered over the dirt, searching. Gently, he placed his tile near where he decided would be the top of the design. Eliot scooted over and placed his tile near the bottom. 

The air shifted. Quentin rubbed at his arms; he had goosebumps. 

“Did you feel that?” he asked, feeling his hackles rise by the second. Eliot pursed his lips and frowned. 

“Yeah…” Eliot rose, still frowning. “I have a feeling that badger didn’t tell me everything about this place.” 

“You think it’s cursed then?” Quentin asked. 

Eliot raised his eyebrows. “What do _you_ think, Q?” Quentin brushed the dirt off his trousers and glanced around the wood. Nothing about the place _seemed_ ominous, but maybe that was how it got you. 

“I’m not sure,” he said, “But, it definitely feels enchanted. There’s heavy magic here, I don’t know how I didn’t notice. Lying dormant or something.” 

“Until we woke it up.” 

“Yeah, probably.” 

“And here I thought we were finally done with questing bullshit.” Quentin squeezed Eliot’s shoulder. 

“Luck of the draw.” 

Eliot sighed. “Come along, Coldwater. Let’s see what hole we’ve dug ourselves into.”

* * *

Fucked sideways was not how Eliot had planned his vacation, well, not the kind of sideways fucking he usually enjoyed. 

“We can’t leave until it’s solved?” Quentin repeated. The badger nodded. At least it had the good sense to look chagrined. So, it was bad, almost worse than bad, since solving the Mosaic was clearly an impossible task. 

Eliot also had a sneaking suspicion they’d ended up in the past. How he didn’t know, but time displacement would explain why there was a mysterious village in a place Quentin had only created six months ago. 

They’d slunk back into the tavern for some “oh no we’ve just committed ourselves to a life-long unsolvable task” pity drinks. Eliot knocked his back, grimacing at the taste. If this was what he had to look forward to… He sighed and signaled for another. 

Quentin pushed his glasses up and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “We’ve got no choice but to solve it,” he said miserably. 

“Seems that way.” Eliot murmured. 

The whole thing was definitely FUBAR. Eliot glanced at Quentin slumped against the bar making a valiant attempt at glumly blowing his soft white hair out of his face. The fact of the matter was, there was no one else he’d rather be stuck with.

* * *

One of the only benefits of the Mosaic was that it came with its own dwelling. They had a daybed, very shitty clothesline, and a small table out front. Inside the cottage there were really only two rooms. A very dusty, very underused kitchen with a stone fireplace, and a bedroom with a thin mattress. The floor was dirt packed and as smooth as dirt could be after being trampled on God knew how many times. It reminded Quentin of _Little House on the Prairie_ and he was definitely no Laura Ingalls Wilder. 

One thing that helped was what they had brought in their spelled backpacks; various toiletries, Quentin’s Fillory books, some sleeping bags, a small grill and cast-iron pan, a few changes of clothes, a comforter and Eliot’s fancy pillows. They made do with what they had and what they could cast. Temperature control was a biggie as was spelling an icebox together – Quentin regretted leaving his cooler at Whitespire 2.0 – and planning some construction spells to make a third room. 

Quentin had worried the bedroom would be an issue. The last time Quentin had slept in a bed with another person, just _slept_ , was with Eliot and Janet. There was a certain vulnerability in sleeping with another person, in trusting someone that much. Quentin had worried Eliot would’ve been weirded out by him, all gangly limbs and awkward in the night. But Eliot hadn’t said a word of protest, simply fluffed his pillows and rolled onto the left side gracefully, leaving space for Quentin in his wake. 

That was the thing about Eliot, everything he did seemed effortless. You’d never would have thought Quentin was an ex-King living in a shack in the middle of nowhere and no time at all. Yet, Eliot’s regality shone through. He wore silk pajamas to bed, woke up early always looking ready for the day, and surged forward with their work. If Quentin found himself despondent and tired, he could always count on Eliot to come to him with a gentle word or soft tug to his feet. 

It was a damn shame Quentin was the only one there to appreciate it. 

The Mosaic was just far enough away from town for Eliot and Quentin to feel like they were in their own isolated world. It was the extreme of every fantasy Quentin had had as a child. 

His own secret garden. 

Not paradise, but something magical all the same, and Quentin had always loved magic.

* * *

Eliot dropped the sack of flour with a thud. Bartering in town was something of a skill and Quentin, bless his heart, was awful at it. This meant Eliot did most of their “shopping.” He wiped his hands on a washcloth and began emptying his backpack. Some cheese, jarred tomato paste, some unsalted butter from the farm up the road, and a jar of dried apricots. According to Old Addy from up the road, a handsome woman sold fruit in the summer and Addy was sure “she’d be happy to come by and have a look at their puzzle.” 

Wink, wink. 

That was the thing, though. Two months in and they’d barely produced sparkle nor sound from the Mosaic. 

It pissed Eliot off. 

Art was subjective! How were they ever supposed to depict the beauty of all life if beauty typically was in the eye of the beholder? Eliot sighed and used telekinesis to float some utensils. It was showy, but he felt like being showy today. 

What was the point of wasting away in the deep forest with an unsolvable task if he didn’t treat himself?

* * *

Quentin clicked the last tile into place and waited. 

Waited. 

He groaned. 

“Nope!” he called behind him. Eliot gave him a thumbs up to show he had heard. Quentin rose to his feet carefully and made a beeline to the table where Eliot was sitting. Eliot tapped his fingers on the table and chewed at his lip. He grabbed their bowl of colored chalk – left behind from one of the unsuccessful questers – and a scrap of paper they’d begged off the village apothecary the first time they’d gone into the market. 

“Which one is this, number five?” Eliot murmured, grabbing a blue chalk from the bowl. 

“Six.” Quentin answered, grabbing a glass of water. He eyed the clothesline. The frayed rope ran from a hook at the edge of the cottage to a pole staked a couple feet away. 

“There’s a river down the road, right?” 

“Hmm?” Eliot looked up from his paper. 

“A river?” Quentin repeated, enunciating each syllable. 

“I think so. Why, are you finally doing the laundry?” Eliot smirked. 

Quentin looked away, grumbling. Laundry spells only worked so well when you had only six shirts to choose from. 

“Yes, I’m finally doing the laundry,” he said, feeling altogether like a teenager emerging from their room to a parent saying “oh, look who’s finally come out.” 

“Take the fishing rod and some bait with you.” Eliot said, focusing back on his drawing. “I’d like to see you make dinner for once.” 

Quentin laughed. “Be careful what you wish for. I might turn you off of fish forever.” 

“Hmmm. We’ll see,” Eliot said with a smile. 

The expression tugged his angular jaw up and where his lips curved, his whole face followed suit. Quentin desperately wished he could take a picture and save Eliot’s expression forever. It was good to see him smile; it felt right, like how saving Fillory had felt right, like saving magic. A key clicking in a lock, unlocking something soft and squishy within that Kingly and cultivated exterior. His own heart beat loudly in his ears. 

Quentin looked away.

* * *

“Peaches? Plums?” The fruit seller asked, offering a peach to Quentin. 

They were one third of the way through their design for the morning; it was a pixelated cube turned at a slight angle. Eliot had wanted to try something more abstract than their usual rose-butterfly-dolphin-sunset combo. But for some reason he was having a hard time focusing. 

Quentin took the peach and tucked it into his pocket. 

“Thanks, uh-?”

“Arielle,” she said, smiling at him. 

Quentin smiled back. 

She was thin with elfish features and burnished red hair that was tucked into a French braid and rested over her shoulder. Behind her, a man came up and grabbed Arielle around the waist. She turned around and gave him a kiss. 

“This is Lunk, my partner.” Arielle said. 

Eliot raised his eyebrows. 

Lunk was certainly a name. 

“That’s Eliot.” Quentin said and pointed at him. 

Eliot gave his best Queen of England wave. 

Arielle came over and curiously looked over the Mosaic. 

“How interesting,” she murmured. 

“Not my best work,” Eliot conceded. “Do you need something?” 

Arielle looked over at Quentin, eyes warm. “Lunk and I wanted to invite you both over to dinner tonight.” She looked back at Eliot, eyebrow raised. “If that’s alright?” 

Eliot coughed. 

“That sounds great.” Quentin said, smiling at her. 

“We’d love to come.” Eliot said dryly. 

“Yes, well, please do.” Arielle shifted her basket to her hip and took Lunk’s hand. 

“Nice to meet you both,” she said looking at Quentin. 

Lunk waved. 

They watched them leave. 

“She seems nice.” Quentin said. 

“Uh-huh,” Eliot said and frowned.

* * *

Quentin shook his hands, and some sparks flew. He’d been neglecting his hand exercises in favor of focusing on the Mosaic and he’d gotten a little rusty. He wiggled his fingers getting the last residue of magic off of his hands and sat on the bed. Eliot was lounging on the other side, reading one of the few books they had. 

“You know,” he said, bookmarking the page with his finger “If I’d known we’d be stuck with a magical puzzle for five months I’d’ve brought more books with me.” 

Quentin hmmed and dug a hand into his pocket and pulled out some parchment. He handed it over to Eliot who thanked him and slipped it into his book. 

“And I definitely wouldn’t have brought _Ripley’s Believe It or Not!”_

“Oh my God.” Quentin laughed. 

“Though some of this stuff is pretty interesting… Did you know that the novel _Futility_ predicted the sinking of the Titanic fourteen years before it was built?” 

“Huh.” Quentin said. “Where did you even get that book?” 

“The royal library. The head librarian - he’s an orangutan, if you remember – saved a bunch of books when it looked like Fillory was done for. I just grabbed stuff I could peruse during our off time. I don’t think some of the stuff in it is even accurate anymore; it’s from the nineties.” 

“You could technically use that to predict the future.” Quentin pointed out. 

“You’d think, but sadly there’s no Fillorian fun facts in this book. Or anything about your land for that matter.” Eliot dropped the book onto his bedside table and flopped over. 

His dark curls spilled over the pillows artfully which was impressive considering the force with which his face had met the pillow.

“I’m taking a nap. Wake me up when you’ve started dinner.” 

Quentin smiled. “Will do.”

* * *

“This is pointless,” Eliot growled and then chucked a tile against the ground. 

It split. 

“Ten months we’ve been at this, Q. What are we doing here?” 

Quentin climbed down from the ladder they had made and quietly knelt down. He grabbed the two pieces of tile strewn on the ground and mended them. 

“Our best,” he said. “That sounds disingenuous, I know, but it’s the truth.” 

Eliot sighed and scrubbed a hand over his face. “I feel like I’m going insane,” he laughed tiredly. 

“Who knew infinite options would actually mean infinite options, right?” Quentin said, smiling. 

He handed the tile back to Eliot. 

Their fingers brushed. 

“I’m sorry. I’m just stressed and tired of coming up with new designs every day and-” Eliot stopped and set the tile down. “I miss Janet. I miss Poppy and Josh and their loud baby. Hell, I even miss the Fenwicks.” 

He laid back onto the Mosaic, the tiles dug into his back. 

“God, isn’t that embarrassing?” 

Quentin hummed and laid down next to him. 

“I get it, though. I miss Alice, and Janet and all the rest, Plum, Julia. It sucks. It does. I don’t know. Maybe I’m handling this better because the person I’d miss most is you.” 

Eliot watched the clouds, willing himself to look away. The thing was Quentin was the person he’d miss most too. 

“But I’m here,” he said. 

“But you’re here,” Quentin agreed. “So, it’ll be fine.” 

“Yeah,” Eliot said faintly. “Fine.”

* * *

_Clink!_ Quentin and Eliot’s smooth earthenware cups glinted in the firelight. 

“Happy anniversary, Q.” Eliot said. “To our first and last year at this thing.” 

Quentin swirled the sour wine in his glass. For some reason tonight he was feeling nostalgic for two vastly different points in his life. The memory of late nights drinking at the Physical Kids Cottage flickered like a soft flame. He’d been so young then, so self-absorbed. Quentin liked to think he’d evolved a little past that depressed teen and the drama of that past. Still, he remembered nights similar to this, curled on the couch with Alice on his left, his gangly limbs contorted and crowded to make room for Janet’s sprawling small figure, Josh’s round one or Eliot’s elegant legs. There had been something then, not innocence - no, Quentin wasn’t _that_ tipsy - but a naivety in never seeing past their own problems. It felt weird to miss that and maybe it was the illusion of simplicity and order, or something making sense in a world so full of confusion and chaos. 

He wasn’t sure. 

He remembered too what it had been like as a professor at Brakebills, something he never imagined himself doing. The long nights with Hamish, having a whiskey in Botany Bay and talking over that damn Library page. He wondered what Hamish was doing now. 

Or, he guessed, would be doing.

Definitely wasn’t born yet. 

About four months in Quentin had finally remembered to cast a time spell. It had contained elements of that kid Stoppard’s horomancy device, just little bits of spell he remembered glimpsing when he was stuck in an airport for several months. It told them what they’d expected: somehow, they’d wound up in Fillory past. Eliot had theorized that because Quentin’s land was more of a bridge in the middle of Earth and Fillory – a Middle Earth, ha ha – it was a bit more unpredictable than the reliable absurdity of Fillory and the unpredictable dullness of Earth. 

Hence, time fuckery. 

Specifically, fifty years in the past fuckery. 

Quentin sighed and drank. 

He looked over his cup at Eliot. In this light, his dark hair was haloed by fuzzy firelight – Quentin didn’t have his glasses on – and it made his skin look golden. 

Their eyes met. 

The wine brought a heat to his face. He felt exposed, sitting on their soft quilt under the stars, looking into Eliot’s eyes. 

Then, Eliot looked away.

* * *

Working on the Mosaic became monotonous. 

In the hypothetical documentary of his life, Eliot liked to imagine that the days would all be time lapsed together and maybe overlaid with some catchy music. Including, of course, little shots of his hands as he worked and the ever-changing designs they placed down morning and night. However, the reality of working on a puzzle everyday was this: it was exhausting, it was repetitive, and worst of all, it was so, so _boring_. 

Honestly, fuck quests. 

When he was King – was with an asterisk because they were gonna solve this fucking puzzle even if it killed him – he enjoyed going on adventures. Hell, even dueling Vile Father hadn’t been as bad as deciding which seascape variant they were going with that day. 

It was all so mind-numbingly _dull._

Also, Eliot hated to pull the trauma card – pity was a thing for other people – but the cottage and the surrounding woods practically screamed Oregon. Sometimes he imagined he’d open the door to their little home, only to find his three brothers and over-compensating father inside. 

A nightmare really.

* * *

Quentin dropped some tiles on the ground and just for the hell of it, pushed over a stack near him. Eliot was sleeping on the daybed. Quentin sighed. 

“Bad day?” came a voice from above him. 

He repositioned his glasses on his nose and blinked. 

Arielle smiled at him. 

“Yeah,” he smiled wearily. 

“No Lunk this time?” 

The two of them often came to visit together, Quentin and Eliot’s intrepid neighbors, though recently it was mostly Arielle. Quentin didn’t mind that one bit. 

“No,” Arielle sighed, “I found him holding…someone else’s peaches,” she grimaced. 

“Oh.” Quentin said. He stood up, his back protesting as he did. 

“I’m sorry?” He took her basket and set it on the ground. 

“It wasn’t meant to be, I suppose.” Arielle shrugged. Quentin nodded. He looked across the yard. Eliot was still asleep, and he probably wasn’t going to get more done today. He turned back to Arielle. 

She was lovely in her heartbreak, or whatever her feelings over Lunk were. Quentin had a suspicion there wasn’t a lot of romance there, considering he’d only heard maybe three words out of Lunk’s mouth in his year and a half of knowing him. 

“Do you want to stay for dinner?” Quentin asked, feeling suddenly bold. He had the overwhelming urge to make her feel better, beyond the usual social necessity that came with comforting someone upset. There was just something about her, some inner strength of character that drew Quentin in like a moth to a flame. 

Arielle’s eyes widened. 

“With me and El,” he clarified, feeling warm all of the sudden. 

Arielle barked out a startled laugh and wiped her eyes. 

“I’d love that.”

* * *

All Quentin seemed capable of talking about was Arielle. 

Ari, Ari, Ari. 

It was getting on Eliot’s nerves. 

He had been unceremoniously exiled to the daybed, where he wasted away designing beautiful things and reading shitty books while Quentin and his little lady got busy in bed. Even though they’d built a second bedroom, Eliot was honestly glad he wasn’t sleeping in it. It was one thing to see Quentin mooning over Arielle, tripping over their garden with those gangly legs of his and sighing like a teenage girl who had just read _Twilight_ for the first time and thought it was the absolute pinnacle of romance; but to actually hear them? 

_Fuck_ that. 

Eliot splashed water on his face and grimaced at his reflection. The river was quiet save for the obvious rushing of water and the sounds that the forest often made. The screaming of cicadas or whatever the Fillorian or Quentin’s land equivalent was something he’d purposefully purged from his mind the day he’d stepped onto the Brakebills campus. 

Alas, unable to leave the town Eliot was forced to confront not only the memory of annoyingly loud bugs, but other unsavories from his childhood. 

He sighed and grabbed their wicker laundry basket Arielle had made. 

He didn’t hate her or anything. She was sweet, and he certainly appreciated the extra help around the cottage, it was like – and even thinking this Eliot felt a certain sense of embarrassment and absurdity – she had slipped into their lives and slowly taken his place. It was an awful, crawling, all-encompassing feeling: one that prescribed a future of bitterness with Eliot unceremoniously glued to the corner of their cottage as the lonely wallflower and gay best friend. 

He wrung out their wet laundry and began to beat the clothes against a rock. It was moments like these where he missed Janet’s quick wit and dry commentary. If Janet were here, she’d- well, would have some terrible idea about revenge sex or something, or even just regular sex. 

That was another thing: Eliot wasn’t exactly celibate, but he certainly wasn’t getting regular action. 

He laughed ruefully to himself. 

Well, what did it matter anyway? 

With a final flick of the wrist, he unrolled the damp laundry and laid it out upon the rocks. Then, he cast a quick altered version of _Mendel’s Light Intangible_ with some sand he’d snatched from the edge of the river. The clothing dried, steam rising off the shirts in small twisting lines. 

He sighed, gathered up the laundry, and started back.

* * *

Teddy was an accident. 

Quentin had never imagined himself being a father, not really. Sure, there was the typical American daydream of a nuclear household: white picket fence, job in finance with two point five kids and a dog, but beyond that, the concept of fatherhood was always foreign to him. 

It didn’t help that, as fathers and father figures went, the ones that Quentin had were marginally disappointing. 

However, Quentin liked to think that after literally killing some Gods and gaining the tentative approval of his professors, he was a bit better off and a hell of a lot more confident. 

Or something. 

He wasn’t sure if Arielle wanted to be a mother. 

Theirs was a semi-casual relationship. Ari came over, watched Quentin and Eliot work, sometimes cooked, sometimes complained about her workday, listened to him talk on and on about the Mosaic’s magical circumstances, and then edged Quentin until he sobbed into their mattress. But she’d smiled after she told Quentin the news, so he assumed it was alright. 

Now, a little more than nine months later, Quentin Coldwater, at the tender age of thirty-three, was a dad. 

What a thing that was. 

Theodore Rupert Coldwater, that was his name. 

Ted, for his dad. The Rupert thing was a little awkward, but it was the only name he could think of other than Martin and _that_ would’ve been abominably worse. Quentin figured if they ever solved the Mosaic and got back to Fillory he would deal with the shit Plum would give him about it later. Until they solved it though, he had this, an actual human that he helped make. 

It was like magic.

* * *

Eliot bounced the unexpected addition to their little household on his knee. 

Teddy cooed. 

He was cute, as babies went, though Eliot had a very limited experience with those: his nose was a little crooked and his face was always a little flushed, he had thick curly brown hair, the same color Quentin had had years ago before the centaur’s healing magic turned it white, and he had big brown eyes that always followed you around curiously. Eliot smiled at him. 

It made it all the worse, the not-hating Arielle, because he couldn’t, and it was, of course, impossible not to love Teddy. 

Just as it was impossible not to love Quentin. 

Quentin, who had taken on the role of a new dad as obsessively and fearlessly as anything else in his life. Eliot looked out the cottage window where the man in question was working. 

Quentin had let his hair grow longer, fully embracing the fantasy aesthetic of their little home. It was braided back, fish-tail style, and looking rather ragged. The by-product of having a son who loved to grab and pull. Quentin frowned and made a note on a floating page. He looked up and they made eye contact. Quentin beamed. He jogged up to the open window and waved at Teddy, who tightfisted, waved back. 

“Are you being good?” Quentin asked, his eyes twinkling. 

“Oh no,” Eliot said, “He’s been committing all kinds of crimes: being adorable, making baby noises, and tax evasion.” Quentin laughed. He leaned against the window frame, ducking his head a little. 

“I know _you’ve_ been doing that, but what about Teddy?” Quentin winked. 

“Oh, Teddy? He’s fine.” 

Teddy gurgled and grabbed at his dad. Quentin picked him up easily and set him on his hip. 

“Want to help Daddy?” he asked. Teddy giggled and clapped his hands. 

“That’s a yes.” Eliot said. 

“Didn’t know you were fluent in baby, Waugh.” Quentin laughed.

“It’s like a second language.” Eliot said, grinning. 

“Thanks for watching him.”

“No problem.”

Quentin squeezed his hand and walked back to the Mosaic. 

Eliot flexed his fingers, watching Quentin get back to work, baby in tow. 

He sighed.

* * *

Quentin was in love with Arielle. 

At least, he assumed he was. 

Really thinking about it, Quentin couldn't really say if he'd ever been in love. 

Sure, he'd told himself that in the past, but it'd always ended up half-true. He told himself he was in love with Julia, but he realized he loved her as a sister. He loved Alice once, and still did, but as a best friend. Janet and Poppy, he never had any illusions about, they were friends, complicated friends sometimes but that was all. Josh and Plum were friends too. 

And Eliot? He was just _Eliot_. 

Quentin knew he was capable of love: love for people, books, and places. Maybe Fillory was his love? But, no, Fillory was Eliot's. Quentin considered asking Eliot. He always knew when and where and what he wanted. 

Quentin loved Teddy, that was just a fact. 

It was impossible not to. 

Loving Teddy made Quentin think of his own parents. He’d never felt abandoned by them, not when his concept of abandonment was something like being stranded at a train station or shipped off to a boarding school, but the more he experienced being a parent himself, he realized just how much support he had lacked growing up. Besides one early memory of going to Disney World while on a trip to visit his great-grandmother in Florida, Quentin couldn’t say that he had any particularly fond memories of his childhood. It was upsetting and thinking about it his apparent parental neglect had probably contributed to some of his issues later in life. 

Quentin made a mental note to tell his therapist about it if they ever solved the puzzle and actually figured out a way home. 

The main thing was Quentin loved his son and refused to be a passive unknowable person in his life. 

He watched Teddy, now a toddler, zoom around the kitchen, weaving in between Arielle’s legs and almost tripping on the carpet. Eliot picked him up and tossed him up and down, telekinesis providing a cushion of safety. Quentin smiled. 

He had this kind of love, and it was more than enough.

* * *

Eliot peeled some apples into a large earthenware bowl; across the kitchen, Arielle was handweaving a basket while Teddy ran around the room, zigzagging around their legs and under the kitchen table. Quentin was in town, getting ingredients for Teddy’s birthday party the next day. There weren’t a lot of kids in the village, but there were enough of them to have a modest birthday bash that would probably be hell to clean up after. 

Such was the life of parents in a fantasy world. 

Ari set down her straw with a frustrated noise. 

“Teddy, baby, can you stop running around so much? Mama’s trying to work,” she asked, grimacing. Teddy blinked and nodded. 

Then began running again. 

Eliot grabbed a cinnamon stick from a jar and scraped along the side, tapping the dust into the bowl. He watched Arielle from the corner of his eye. She took her basket back onto her lap, but simply stared at the pieces. It looked like – to borrow a Josh-ism – she was about to “flip her lid.” Teddy began to run around faster than before. All that extra toddler energy was a real bitch. 

“Theodore!” Ari yelled. 

Eliot turned around. Teddy was crying little Ghibli tears, his little hands balled into fists the way he did when he didn’t get what he wanted. Arielle had her face in her hands. 

“Hey, Ari, are you-” Eliot reached out to her carefully. She beat his hand away. 

“I’m fine, I- I just need some air; a walk.” Arielle sniffed heavily. “I won’t go far,” she said, looking down at Teddy, who was tearfully sniffing just like his mother. 

“Okay…” Eliot said. “If I can help in any way…?” 

“It’s fine.” Ari smiled, quick. “Just need some air.” 

Eliot watched her leave.

* * *

“Can we talk?” Arielle asked. 

She gestured for Quentin to follow her into the kitchen. He followed, frowning. 

Eliot had taken Teddy down river to teach him how to swim. The cottage was theirs and they were all alone. Ari tugged at a loose thread in her skirt, pulling and pulling until it unraveled and snapped. 

“There's no easy way to say this, but... I want to be done.”

“Done?” Quentin echoed. 

“Yes. I wanted to stay, at first. When I had Teddy you just looked at him with such love. I would've broken my own heart if I'd left then.” Arielle sniffed. “I'm not cut out for this. I'd always had mixed feelings about kids and don't be mistaken, I love Teddy, but-”

“You can't stay.” Quentin said, the ground sinking out from under him. 

“I wish I had it in me but, I'm not- I don't want to be a mother.” Arielle stepped close and cupped Quentin's cheek. "I'm sorry, Q," she said softly. 

He pressed his hand to hers. 

“What will I do without you here?” he asked, more to himself than her. 

“You'll be alright, you've got Eliot." 

Quentin laughed, a little wet. “Eliot? What's he got to do with this?” 

Arielle frowned. “You really don't know?” 

“Know what?” Quentin said. 

“That you're in love with Eliot, and Eliot's in love with you.” 

Quentin blinked. 

“What are you- He's not in love with me and I'm not in love with him. He could never- I think I'd know.” 

Ari slapped him lightly on the side of the head.

“I've seen the way you two look at each other. Even before I came along it was always you two here alone. I've heard the stories you yourself have told me. Eliot, Eliot, Eliot. Tell me Quentin, why do you care about him so much?” 

“Because he's Eliot.” Quentin said defensively. 

What more was there to say? 

It was always Eliot. 

Just _Eliot_.

Oh, he thought. 

_Oh shit_.

* * *

Quentin was acting strange, and it wasn’t his usual “I learned stage magic to cope with high school” act or his sometimes broody “I’m the main character” act either. 

No, Eliot thought as he watched Quentin decide between the same green tile for the fifteenth time that day, this was something different. 

“Quentin,” he called. “Do you want to come inside? It looks like it’s gonna rain.” 

Quentin looked up, startled. He swallowed and stood up, sweeping the remaining tiles into a basket with a brush of his hand. 

“Sure. I’ll- sure.” He tucked his white hair behind his ear and took off his glasses, rubbing them against his soft Fillorian style tunic. 

It was a miracle those things hadn’t broken. 

Quentin came inside, averting his gaze as he passed Eliot. 

That was another thing. 

Since Arielle had left Quentin had been acting weird around Eliot; it was like he didn’t quite know how to behave around him, which was especially worrying. 

He wondered, had Arielle told Quentin something about Eliot’s feelings? Did Quentin know and that was why he was acting so strange? What would this mean for their friendship? 

It wasn’t like Quentin could leave like Arielle did. 

They were stuck together, the two of them, for better or worse, in sickness and miserable health. 

Besides, there were more important things to worry about: raising Teddy, solving the Mosaic, getting home. Though that last one seemed further and further away the more he thought about it. It had begun to dawn on Eliot that _home_ wasn’t Whitespire or Fillory anymore, but their little two-bedroom cottage, with its red painted outer walls, modest vegetable garden and the sound of Teddy giggling down the hall. Eliot sighed and followed Quentin inside. 

He would be here for him through all this. 

Quentin deserved happiness, they both did, and if Eliot could bring some back into Quentin’s life, then of course he would do his damndest to do so.

* * *

Quentin didn’t know how to act around Eliot anymore. 

The more he thought about what Arielle had said the more everything made sense. Ari leaving hurt, yes, and it was certainly the very first “fantasy divorce” Quentin had ever experienced – though did it count as divorce if you were never married in the first place? They’d never been committed to each other like that; Quentin had always liked to think he was more sophisticated than an old-fashioned marriage, but he knew down in the village you could have a small handfasting ceremony, and his mind had never wandered to Arielle when he walked by that woven arch on his way to the market. It was strange to look back on twenty years of a relationship with this new perspective. 

Twenty years! 

To think it had been that long already. 

Eliot still looked as intriguing as ever, still the same handsome boy he’d stumbled upon that day smoking a Merit against a tree on the Sea, who hadn’t laughed at him when Quentin had asked if he was in Fillory. Quentin’s memories of their first and only coupling were very vague and hazy, and not for the first time he wished he could remember more of it. 

He’d never put a magnifying glass up to his sexuality, in fact, he’d never even considered it as something to _be_ considered. 

He knew that he loved Eliot, but more so than that Quentin knew he was _in_ love with Eliot. 

The only problem now was how to tell him.

* * *

“Six years,” Quentin said. Their cups clinked together amicably. 

“We’ll solve this thing eventually.” Eliot said, gulping down their makeshift wine. 

It was finally starting to taste like something, though nothing good, more like the aftertaste of grape or an alcoholic _La Croix_. 

Quentin fidgeted with his cup, looking down and away. 

Teddy was being watched by Old Addy for the night, they were completely alone together. Eliot waited. Was this it? Was this the big rejection he’d always braced himself for? 

Eliot swallowed down more godawful wine. 

“I still don’t really know how to say this,” Quentin began. He laughed quietly. “And I don’t know why it’s so hard for me. Probably because I’ve never talked about it -wasn’t really aware of it until so recently – and just like always I’ve gotten into my head.” 

Eliot bit his lip. “Is this about-” 

Quentin put a hand up. “Just let me- Hear me out?” 

Quentin’s eyes were warm and dark, pupil’s blown in the midsummer night. The fire crackled and popped. 

Eliot nodded. 

“Um, how do you define something that you’ve known without definition for so long? I had this same feeling when we actually got to Fillory, when I stumbled into Brakebills, that kind of click of recognition, the ‘oh, this is where I’m supposed to be.’ This thing- this feeling I have – took a lot longer to click than the others, but now that it has, I’ve realized it’s because it felt so natural and so right for so long, I never examined it. It just was a fact of my life.” Quentin set his cup down and gently took his hand. “Eliot Waugh,” he said, looking hopeful and nervous and a little bit red, “I love you and I’ve been in love with you for a long time, I think, and it took me way _way_ too long to realize it.” 

Eliot stared at him. He could think of nothing to say. 

“Ari helped me see it before she left,” Quentin continued, his grip tightening in Eliot’s own, just a little, “She told me that you-” He took a deep breath. “Arielle told me you loved me too. That it was- yeah, that you loved me too.” 

Eliot’s mouth felt dry. 

“And if she was- if I’m wrong about that, please feel free to tell me to fuck off.” Quentin laughed nervously. “I can leave if you want me to- do you want me to leave?” 

“No, no!” Eliot managed to choke out. 

“Good! Great.” Quentin said. 

They stared at each other. Eliot’s heart beat loud, a cacophony between his ears. 

In love, the little voice inside his head repeated, Quentin’s in love with you. 

_He’s in love with you._

“I, uh-” Eliot started.

Swallowed.

Surged forward.

Eliot kissed Quentin, kissed him with all the feeling in the world. He cradled Quentin’s head and they continued kissing for what felt like hours. Eliot felt giddy and lightheaded in a way he hadn’t in years. They smiled into each other’s mouths, teeth sometimes clashing, and heads sometimes knocking, pausing only to take a breath and laugh before surging in again, passionate, and sweet. Eliot had kissed Quentin twice in his life, but never like this, here at last, the strength of his emotion had met its match. 

Quentin pulled back from him with a dopey little smile. “So that’s a yes?” he beamed. 

“Yes.” Eliot said, smiling, unable to stop. “I love you too.” 

I love you, Eliot thought, and it’s the easiest thing in the world.

* * *

“If you keep picking at your jacket you won’t get the peach cobbler tonight,” Quentin said. 

Teddy gave him a look. “I don’t see why you need my help anyway. It’s not like I’m the tailor.” 

He jumped off his seat with a thump and walked across the room to the table some local friends had helped set up. Teddy picked up a silver spoon, turning it in the light. 

“Do we need this?” he asked over his shoulder. 

Quentin rolled his eyes. 

He’d never had this much attitude at twelve, had he? 

He wished he could ask his parents. 

“It’s a wedding _gift_. Needing it isn’t the point.” 

Teddy shrugged and dropped it, moving onto other gifts and interesting looking boxes. He grabbed a long cylinder and shook it. 

“Hey,” Quentin grabbed it out of his hands. “Can we stop shaking the presents?” 

“We?” 

“You know what I mean.” 

Teddy stuck his tongue out at him. “I understand why you’re getting married but is it really necessary Daddy? Coldwater-Waugh is such a long last name and you and Papa already live together, like, you’re basically married, you’ve already done the thing.” 

Quentin looked at his son. He was getting so tall, just like his dad. It felt like only yesterday he was a little blinking baby. 

“We may already be _basically_ married, but it's important to your Papa that we’re _officially_ married- and it’s important to me too. I love him.” Quentin straightened his necktie. “Plus, after this I can call your Papa my husband.” 

“Gross, ” Teddy said, smiling. 

“Yeah, yeah.” Quentin said. “Help me with the flowers?”

* * *

“Come visit soon.” Quentin said. 

Eliot squeezed his shoulder. 

“Of course.” Teddy said and shifted his bag. 

This was it. Eliot had never in his life considered what it would be like to live to middle age, let alone past it. Now, here he was, about to become an empty nester of all things. Teddy would be fine, he knew that, but now that he was actually leaving, Eliot wished he wouldn’t. 

“If we’re not here-” Quentin began again. 

“I know, Dad.” 

Quentin gathered their son up into a tight hug. 

“Love you too,” Eliot heard Teddy mumble. 

Then Teddy turned to him. 

Eliot held his son tight.

“Proud of you,” he whispered. 

He felt Teddy smile against his chest. 

Then, it was just the two of them. 

Eliot sniffed. His heart ached but with happiness. Teddy was going to make something of himself and hopefully they’d be around to see it. 

“Fuck.” 

“You can say that again.” 

“ _Fuck_.” 

Quentin laughed, a little wet and kissed him on the cheek. 

“Come inside, old man, it’s cold out here.” 

Eliot wiped his eyes. 

“I’ll show you old,” he said. 

He kissed Quentin back soundly, relishing in the taste of him. Quentin’s eyes twinkled. 

“Now you really have to come inside.” 

“Oh, I’ll _come_ inside.” Eliot purred. 

“Oh my God,” Quentin laughed. “You’re the worst.” 

“I know,” Eliot smiled, feeling warm despite the cold. “But you love me anyway.” 

“Mhmm.” Quentin kissed him again. “I do.”

* * *

Eliot’s hair was a beautiful silver. It reminded Quentin of the clockwork in Whitespire’s towers: silver gears that turned the rooms slowly each day. At least, at this age, Quentin’s white hair was finally appropriate. He’d had years to get used to it. 

“Do you ever think about them?” Eliot asked. Quentin watched him stand slowly; his cane was leaning against the table, since the vain bastard never wanted to use it. 

“Our grandkids?” Quentin asked. Teddy had brought the girls by a week ago. They’d used some of their designs but none of them had worked. So much for the beauty of the butterfly.

“No,” Eliot said. “Our friends- from our lives before.” 

Quentin thought about it. 

“I dream about them sometimes,” he said. In truth, it had been years since he’d thought about them. His life was here, and he had Eliot. 

Had him for almost fifty years now. 

The circumstances that brought them to this point might have been less than perfect, but Quentin wouldn’t’ve traded it for the world.

* * *

Eliot was finding it harder to move these days. 

Ah, the curse of age. 

He recalled with envy the days of his forties when he had only just started finding grey hairs. Eliot watched Quentin get ready for bed. Long hair and beard, Quentin looked more like Gandalf the White than someone born in the nineties. 

Eliot lifted the blanket and Quentin crawled in next to him. 

“You’re cold.” Quentin complained. 

“Warm me up then.” Eliot replied. Quentin rolled over and slotted himself in behind him. Eliot laced their fingers together. He looked down at their hands. They were so knobby and veined. 

A life well lived; that was something beautiful, right? 

He turned a little, making Quentin grumble and kissed his husband. 

“Love you.” Eliot said. 

“I love you too.” Quentin frowned. “What’s up?” 

“Nothing,” Eliot said. “Just wanted to say it.”

Quentin smiled.

“Go to sleep.”

Eliot would.

* * *

Quentin made a final mark on his sketch. 

Last design of the day, same result as always: nothing. 

Tonight, they could make the leftover soup and he could start the bread for tomorrow. 

Quentin also had a secret; it was Eliot’s birthday next month and he had been learning how to whittle, a skill he had never mastered like Teddy had, and he had the bare bones beginning of a wardrobe finished. He smiled. 

Eliot was gonna love it. 

Quentin picked up the last of the tiles and hummed. 

“Hey, Eliot-” he turned to where Eliot sat in their little wicker chair. 

Eliot was still. 

“Eliot.” 

Quentin repeated louder, hoping, wishing, it wasn’t true. 

Silence. 

A noise escaped his throat. 

Quentin wept. 

Later, he gently wrapped Eliot in a quilt. Quentin brushed Eliot’s silver hair behind his ear and dropped a kiss to his forehead. He tried not to cry on the body. He conjured up a shovel and began to dig. All at once, he hit something. Quentin knelt down, knees creaking, and reached into the hole. 

He turned it over in hands: a golden tile. 

Quentin looked at the Mosaic. 

His mind felt hazy. It was wrong, all _wrong._ He walked over and stood in the middle of the puzzle, tile in hand. Quentin looked back at the quilt and Eliot. He swallowed back another sob. 

Carefully, he placed the golden tile in the center of the Mosaic. 

The tile pulsed and shined. 

Quentin stepped back and watched it sink into the ground. 

  
  


And 

  
  
  


then, 

  
  
  


then

  
  


.

..

…

  
  


“Let’s try it once and go.” Eliot said. 

Quentin nodded. 

It was getting late. 

His hand hovered over the dirt, searching. Gently, he placed his tile near where he decided would be the top of the design. Eliot scooted over and placed his tile near the bottom. 

Nothing happened. 

“Huh.” Quentin said. 

“Well, it was worth a shot.” Eliot yawned. “Let’s go find an inn or something. I’m tired.” 

“Okay,” Quentin helped Eliot up. “I’m kinda disappointed nothing happened.” 

Eliot shrugged. “Maybe someone solved it already?” 

“Yeah,” Quentin said. “Maybe.”

Together, they left the Mosaic behind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *evolve by phoria blasts at full volume over my sobbing*  
> the title is taken from Robert Browning's Never The Time and The Place  
> my twitter: @wow__then  
> chapter 3 at some point! thank you for reading!
> 
> Also I feel like I should say, the reason the whole mosaic timeline is in this whole chapter is bc I wanted it to feel like the bottle ep itself :)


	3. this path-- how soft to pace!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Quentin and Eliot remember.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this fic is dedicated to the beautiful Anna who regularly refuses my compliments, addy who is my book conspirator, and everyone else in the wlw and p&p discord :D  
> thanks to my beta Airenn for suffering me sending them messages at 1am when i finished the chapter last night  
> and thank YOU for reading this! please leave a comment if you enjoyed :)

“So, the vacation was a bust, huh?” Poppy said. She shushed little George, rocking him in her arms, but the baby didn’t let up. 

“Here let me.” Eliot said. 

Poppy handed her son over with a curious look. Eliot stuck out his finger. George took it into his mouth with a gross pop. 

“He’s teething.” Eliot explained. “Sometimes the teeth come in a little late, but the gnawing helps with gum soreness and stuff.” George made a happy noise and a copious amount of drool dropped onto Eliot’s embroidered tunic. 

Eliot frowned, looking down at the kid now determined to eat his whole hand. He’d never been around kids long enough to know this kind of thing, aside from the goat variety. Maybe he had picked it up that one time he binge watched  _ The Brady Bunch?  _ Like baby brain osmosis or something. 

Oh well, he thought. 

He grimaced at Poppy. 

“And sort of? We basically hiked for three-ish weeks and that was it.” 

“Exercise?” 

“Lots of it. I think the last time I walked that much was when I was hitch-hiking in my early teens.” 

Georgie bit down hard on his finger. Eliot winced. 

Poppy made a considerate noise and folded a nappy. 

“You wouldn’t mind babysitting Georgie in the future, would you? I’ve read a shit-ton of parenting 101’s but you look like you know what you’re doing.” 

Eliot looked down at the baby in his arms, soft, sweet, and evoking a strange familiarity that made his heart clench. 

“Sure,” he said. “I don’t mind.”

* * *

Quentin checked their collection of powders, liquids, and books for the seventh time. Alice sat in the corner, scribbling notes into a journal, and murmuring to herself. Quentin looked back at the stack of notes  _ he  _ had written for her, double-checking his chicken scratch scrawl and sub-par sketches of hand positions; it looked like the world’s ugliest pile of Spark Notes. Quentin cleared his throat. 

Alice looked up. 

“It’s all there, and a little bit more. Are you sure you don’t want me to stay?” 

Alice stood and looked over his notes for herself. She sighed. 

“I’m sure. Finding Charlie is going to be difficult work; he’s been a niffin for so long now, I was hardly myself after seven years, it’s been so much longer for him. I need to be thorough.” Alice squeezed Quentin’s hand. “I appreciate this, Quentin, I really do. But I can’t have you staying and helping me right now.” 

“Why?” 

Alice looked up searchingly, her electric blue eyes flashing. “You’ve been out of it since you got back. I thought going off with Eliot would do you both some good but if anything, you’ve somehow gotten worse.” 

Ouch. 

Quentin frowned. 

Sure, he’d been a little out of it post-vacation, but not  _ that  _ much. It was just that things kept popping up with the strangest sense of nostalgia that wasn’t there. 

He kept seeing patterns everywhere, artists he knew the names of when he was sure he’d never heard of them, and last week on a grocery run for summoning supplies he’d passed by a Pottery Barn and suddenly discovered he knew how to make an earthenware cooking pot. Okay, maybe he  _ had  _ been more than a little out of it. 

“It’s just a normal reaction to a slightly disappointing adventure- it’s not like Eliot and I went to Margaritaville or something. We  _ hiked. _ ” 

Alice pinched him. Quentin yelped. 

“You need to talk to Eliot about this. If you think something happened to you guys while you were out, you both deserve to know! The land is still mostly uncharted, Quentin. I should know, considering I helped survey just a quarter of it.” 

“Alright, alright.” Quentin said, rubbing his hand. “I’ll go talk to Eliot. Just don’t pinch me again.”

* * *

“Guess who just flew in,” Janet said. She was sprawled over a fainting couch like Cleopatra, elegant in her tight breeches and billowy riding shirt. Eliot sat at the table opposite doing paperwork. Janet reached over to the snack table, snack being a generous term for the full buffet on display. 

There were bananas, grapes, apricots, pineapples, a whole array of strange looking fruit adjacents, peaches, and plums. Janet threw a grape into the air and caught it between her teeth. 

“Quentemth.” 

“Swallow.” 

“Quentin is here.” 

Janet grabbed some more grapes. Eliot signed his name for the last time and stretched his hand. 

“Did he say why?” 

“Not to me no. He’s coming to talk to  _ you _ .” 

“Me?” Eliot asked. “Why?” 

Janet shrugged. 

Eliot grabbed a peach off the snack table and paused. He’d eat it later. 

“To confess his undying love to you? I don’t know, baby.” Janet sat up and blew a loose hair out of her face. 

It was getting longer. Eliot had never seen it go past her chin before. Well, it  _ was  _ the new age. 

“I’m sending him in here though,” she grabbed a bowl from the table. “And I’m taking the grapes.” Janet left with a wave. Eliot frowned. What Quentin wanted from him he didn’t know. It had always been like that, wondering and wondering what Quentin wanted and wishing and hoping it was him. 

Eliot took out a knife and cut into the peach. 

He remembered that second year, where he’d met Quentin, lending him his old jackets just so he’d have a uniform to wear, riding out on the Hudson just to watch the weather shift. Sometimes he felt like the hapless muggles who were boating along with them, knowing there was a subtle difference, a change in the air, but unable to place exactly  _ what _ had changed.

Eliot twisted the peach. It made a satisfying crack. 

Then he’d avoided Quentin as soon as the summer ended. Was it cowardice? Probably. They’d gotten too close, just the two of them. The simple plan of seducing Q that originally percolated in his mind had gone awry. He had “caught feelings” as Janet would say. Quentin had caught him alright. 

Eliot pulled the pit free. He stared at the peach, feeling like… he couldn’t say. 

“Hey.” 

Eliot looked up.

* * *

Quentin waved at Eliot, feeling awkward and gangly for the first time in years. He closed the door carefully behind him and walked up. Eliot shook his head and smiled. “Hey,” he said, his voice warm. Quentin fidgeted. 

“So, I came here to talk about-” 

“Ah.” Eliot held up a hand. “I am nothing if not a good host. Do you want some fruit?” 

Quentin looked at the table overflowing with food. “Oh, uh, I don’t know what to choose,” he said. 

“I can pick for you.” Eliot winked. He sidled over to the table. “Let’s see… passion fruit… grapefruit…apricot…” Quentin watched him consider everything and smiled. 

Maybe it was just him then? These weird flashes and feelings. He wondered what it could mean. 

“Peaches… and…” Eliot turned self-satisfied with his choice. “Plums!” Quentin gave a thumbs up. Eliot returned and began cutting the plum. 

“Now, what is it?” Eliot asked. He handed Quentin his slice of plum and grabbed his peach. 

Eliot took a bite. 

“Well,” Quentin began, taking a bite of his plum. “It’s just that-” 

All at once, it felt like he’d dropped into a bucket of ice. A full body shiver worked its way through Quentin, from the tips of his toes to the edges of his ears, every hair stood on end, every nerve was alight with sensation. The interior of his mind felt like a firework show; memories were snapping and exploding in bright bursts of color, smell, sound, feeling and sight. He blinked rapidly, the taste of plum strong in his mouth. 

He turned to Eliot. 

“Peaches…” he said softly. 

“And plums…” Eliot finished. 

“Peaches and plums…peaches and  _ plums… _ ” 

Eliot took a second reverent bite of his own fruit. Quentin touched his lips. 

“We had a family,” he said. 

Oh, he could cry. 

“We were-” 

Eliot looked at his hands, a faraway look in his eye. “I got so old.” 

“You  _ died _ .” 

“I died,” Eliot echoed. 

Quentin dropped the plum and stood. 

He had to- no he needed to be grounded. His brain was memory soup, years upon years upon years building up in his head. He remembered being forty, being sixty, being – Jesus Christ –  _ eighty _ . 

And Eliot. 

There was always Eliot. 

Eliot who he  _ married _ . Eliot who he  _ loved.  _ Quentin looked at him now and felt the same feeling he had for fifty years and the ten before that.  _ Love.  _ He loved Eliot and it had always been that way. God, it had taken him ten years to figure it out. Thank God for magic and thank god for not-quite-ex-wives. 

Quentin swallowed. 

They couldn’t let this lie. 

He  _ wouldn’t. _

* * *

Eliot staggered to his feet, wiping his mouth, eyes wide. 

Fifty years. 

Fifty fucking years. 

Good God he’d been an old man – well-preserved at that – and had died. Actually died. And Quentin. There was always Quentin. Who married him, who raised a  _ child _ with him. 

They’d had a son. 

_ Grandchildren.  _

Eliot didn’t know if he was going to cry with joy or throw up out of fear. 

Could they even talk about this? To voice it, to talk about it out loud would make it real, real in ways Eliot wasn’t sure Quentin would want. 

“Eliot.” Quentin said, looking as addled as Eliot felt. “Come on-” 

Quentin grabbed Eliot’s hand and pulled him to the fainting couch. Weak kneed and trembling they sat together, shoulders just touching. 

Eliot raked a hand through his curls and exhaled. “Fifty years.” 

Quentin slumped against Eliot’s side. His white hair was a curtain around his eyes, making his expression unreadable. 

“Did it happen?” Eliot asked faintly. 

“It happened.”

* * *

Quentin bit his lip. 

“Hey, so-” he began, looking over at Eliot. 

He looked like a spooked animal ready to bolt at any moment. It reminded Quentin of when Teddy had slipped near the river and hit his head. It hadn’t been anything serious, but it’d scared the life out of them. Eliot had been so overprotective afterwards, for a whole week he insisted on going everywhere with Teddy, much to their seven-year old’s chagrin. Quentin swallowed and took Eliot’s hand. He rubbed soothing circles with his thumb, staring down at it. Eliot’s hands had gotten so callused and stiff with age. 

Spots and veins, tough and tan. 

Both of them. 

They’d spent such a long time together. 

“I know this sounds dumb but-” Quentin met Eliot’s eyes. “Us, we- Think about it, we work. We know it ‘cause we’ve lived it.” Quentin smiled softly. “Who gets that kind of proof of concept?” 

Eliot squeezed his hand deathly tight. “We were just injected with a half-century of emotion, so I get that you’re not thinking straight-” 

“Why not?” Quentin interjected. 

Emotion surged in his chest. A refusal to back down, strong and all encompassing overtook him. 

“Why not?” Eliot echoed, he sniffed. “Quentin you’re straight. I get that I was your only choice after Arielle left, but we got back, we solved it. I’m not the only option anymore.” 

“Only option?” Quentin said. “Is that what that was? When I asked you to marry me- was that you being my only option? When Teddy started calling you Papa was that part of being the only option?” Quentin’s jaw trembled. 

Eliot sat silent. 

“You could’ve left at any time. I could have done the fucking Mosaic all on my own. But you didn’t. You  _ stayed.  _ Don’t feed me the same bullshit you feed yourself, El. I did the same damn thing long enough on my own, I don’t need it from you.” 

Eliot’s opened his mouth. 

“And I’m not  _ straight _ , you asshole.” Quentin added. 

He let go of Eliot’s hand and made for the door.

* * *

“Quentin, wait.” 

Eliot cut Q off from the door. They stared each other down. Eliot’s heart raced from fear. 

Quentin’s eyes were bright and his hurt clear on his face. He was wearing a blue Henley like he’d rushed over here in his pajamas or something. 

He looked beautiful. 

Eliot’s heart clenched. 

“I-” Eliot swallowed. “I’m a coward, okay? You’ve always been- you’re the brave one. Not me.” Quentin watched him warily. 

This was it. Do or die. 

Be _ brave _ for once in your goddamn life. 

Eliot took a deep breath. “I’ve loved you for fifty years. More than that. At the start, you stumbled towards me and I was interested.” Eliot took another shuddering breath. “If I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it more.” 

Quentin stepped forward, warm eyes searching Eliot’s face and picking apart his soul piece by piece. They crinkled. Quentin cupped Eliot’s cheek and smiled at him. 

“Did you just quote Jane Austen?” he asked. 

“Shut up.” Eliot said, and kissed him. 

They met each other mouth to mouth with a passion. Fifty plus years of pent up emotion clashed them together. Quentin pushed Eliot to the wall cupped his face with both hands, cradling him and keeping him there. They kissed and kissed and kissed until they couldn’t anymore. At last, they pulled away from each other. 

Eliot was dizzy. 

It felt like the first time and the last time and every time in between. Quentin beamed, his lips kiss-swollen and face flushed. 

“Hey, Coldwater,” Eliot smiled, his face aching. “Want to go out sometime?” 

“Sure, Waugh,” Quentin said, laughter stealing his words. “I thought you’d never ask.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the title is taken from Robert Browning's Never The Time and The Place  
> my twitter: @wow__then  
> thank you again for reading! :D

**Author's Note:**

> Also the chapter title's come from the poem Never The Time And The Place by Robert Browning!  
> my twitter: @wow__then  
> I don't know when exactly this will be finished because I'm very erratic but I hope you stay along for the ride! :>


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